Paul Menig

Paul Menig is the leader of Tech-I-M LLC, a consulting company focused on helping companies succeed by leveraging technology in their products and processes. After successfully introducing many high tech products in the corporate worlds of General Electric, Eaton and Daimler, he is now focused on savvy technology creating powerful results in companies of all sizes.

Paul also provides free counseling to a wide range of businesses as part of the non-profit organization SCORE that is associated with the Small Business Administration (SBA). Paul is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in electrical engineering and has participated in many training programs in quality, strategic planning, finance and technical areas.

Articles

The vehicle OEMs have been working hard to make the tractor-trailer rigs as aerodynamic as possible. But, the drivers, especially owner-operators, continue to want a couple of other things in their rigs.

Well, I should have known it. When I was in college in Cambridge, MA, at MIT in the 70s, it was a big thing for some of the fraternity brothers to bring back Coors beer on a plane or run in a car across state lines. I spent a good deal of my early career in Milwaukee, WI. Part of the time was spent on the manufacturing floor of Miller Brewing using vision systems to make sure the labels on the beer bottles were properly applied.

I know that I learned in college that even if you've just flipped a coin 10 times and it came out heads each time, the next time you flip, it still has a 50-50 or 50% chance of being heads again. My gut refuses that logic and wants to believe it's something like a 90% chance it will be tails. It's as if I started out saying, what are the chances of getting heads 11 times in a row. That likelihood is only 0.05%. So my gut wants to believe it's even 99.5% chance it will be tails next.

The American Trucking Associations has taglines such as “Trucking Moves America Forward” and “If You Bought It, a Trucker Brought It.” For over 125 years now, the trucking industry has been moving freight including the necessities of life and the luxury items of our desire.

Not only do we have consolidation in the commercial vehicle market globally, and the continued push for proprietary components that are vertically integrated, we now have suppliers pushing into the realm more than I anticipated. Back in the 90’s, the vehicle OEMs were little more than assemblers of the parts provided by all the different tier 1 suppliers. When electronic engines started, the engine control became a vehicle control. This worked will for a number of years. Mack was one of the few vehicle OEMs that had its own engine, as did Navistar for some vehicles.

The rush to get autonomous vehicles on the road is amazing. How can this be, when everyone agrees that our transportation infrastructure is crumbling? How will autonomous vehicles perform on roads full of potholes and bridges that have cracks?

Normally AP goes with News as in the Associated Press News. But, this is news for trucking, so it belongs to Fleet Owner and its IdeaXchange. I was reading this week’s edition of ATA's Transport Topics and my continuing theme of putting autonomous vehicles to work in somewhat safe places came to the fore front again. I saw the articles on inland ports and the concept overhead roadway by Texas A&M University. The two together reminded me of some fishing trips with my dad and his best friend when I was in middle school.

Now, it’s the big 4 with three of the four based in Europe. It’s Daimler, Volvo, VW, and PACCAR. By the time the USA reaches 2027 and the GreenHouse Gas Phase II regulations are fully in force, we will have a global, vertically-integrated truck.

PACCAR needs to find a transmission and axles yet to be able to compete, long-term with the others. Cummins and Eaton are left with challenging prospects for their operations. Both of their shares of the market have declined as the vehicle OEM’s have vertically integrated and introduced their own, proprietary parts.

In my last post, I mentioned the fuel savings that could be realized by driver assistance features, such as cruise control with braking and stop/start capability. This is where a vehicle uses its radar system, brakes, and driver assistance cruise controls to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front, even when the vehicle slows down to a crawl. Only if it stops (in my 2010 Mercedes vehicle) do I have to touch the accelerator pedal to restart the vehicle. I’d like to take this thought a couple of steps further.

Are all of you betting people? Will next year be better or worse for the North American trucking industry? People have started asking me as if I really have that crystal ball I used for my future truck presentation at ATA MC&E last year. My personal guess—a little worse than this year. Okay, now that that is over, let’s get on to the meat of this post.

Instead of betting on the market, I want to talk about betting on the future of technology. And, I’ll warn you, I have an ACE up my sleeve. That ACE stands for Autonomous—Connected—Electric.

My first job out of college (1976) was working in the military defense industry at General Electric in Utica, NY. I was doing some electronics testing for a down-looking radar system to allow missiles to fly autonomously to a target. Some of that technology was used in the early 90’s in a war we had where some may remember video of a bomb finding a chimney and going down it. A key to that technology was an a priori map of the terrain that allowed the radar to correlate what it was seeing live with what had previously been recorded by some other means.

That was the cheer that went up whenever we played limbo as children. It's also the words Chubby Checker sang in his 1962 recording of "Limbo Rock." Apparently, some are still doing it, as the world record was set in 2010 at 8.5 inches! But, what's that got to do with business and marketing? Have you seen any of these words in advertising recently?

My first job out of college (1976) was working in the military defense industry at General Electric in Utica, NY. I was doing some electronics testing for a down-looking radar system to allow missiles to fly autonomously to a target. Some of that technology was used in the early 90’s in a war we had where some may remember video of a bomb finding a chimney and going down it. A key to that technology was an a priori map of the terrain that allowed the radar to correlate what it was seeing live with what had previously been recorded by some other means.

In some previous posts, I’ve admitted that I’ve created problems in the trucking industry, introducing high-tech products for engines, transmissions, brakes, instrumentation and more. I feel obligated to take some steps to improve the situation.